ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MeriTalk, the government IT network, today unveiled the first map of
Federal CIOs’ social media standings. Based on an assessment of 29
Federal CIOs and two deputy CIOs, the MeriTalk sCIOal
Circle study shows who’s active on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
As the traditional destination Federal IT conferences stumble due to
government travel restrictions, government and industry influencers are
challenged to work out how to better communicate with the most senior
Federal IT decision makers. Many folks are looking to social media as a
significant new communication channel.

The study is based on an evaluation of publicly available social media
platforms. MeriTalk assigned CIOs points based on Facebook utilization,
LinkedIn connections, as well as Twitter tweets, followers, and
Follower-to- Follow ratios – F2F ratios. The F2F ratio is the number of
followers divided by the number of people followed.

Casey Coleman, CIO, GSA; and Rick Holgate, CIO, ATF; are the most active
on social media with eight points each. CIOs are not big Facebook users
– only seven have accounts. LinkedIn is very popular – more than 80
percent have accounts. Twitter’s hit and miss – few CIOs have accounts
and fewer still tweet regularly. If you take out the top three tweeters,
all Federal CIOs have generated a total of 396 tweets in the last six
months.

Coleman’s active Facebook account and 500+ connections on LinkedIn
bolster her score. But, it’s Twitter that pushed her to the top. Coleman
has more than 1,673 tweets – 240 tweets in the past six months. She
follows 2,959 tweeters and is followed by 4,908 – a F2F ratio of 1.65.

Like Coleman, Rick Holgate makes Facebook smile and is spiderman on
LinkedIn. With 1,426 lifetime tweets he trails Casey – however, he has
480 tweets in the past six months. That makes him the big bird of
Federal CIOs.

Steven VanRoekel, CIO, OMB, is the most popular kid – with more than
5,000 Twitter followers. Shawn Kingsberry, CIO, Recovery Accountability
and Transparency Board, tops the chart as the most approachable Federal
CIO on Twitter – with an F2F ratio of 0.37. Mr. Brook Colangelo, CIO at
the White House, is the second-most approachable CIO with a F2F ratio of
0.44. Seems the President’s really interested in what America has to
say. Honorable mention for Luke McCormack, CIO at Justice, with a F2F
ratio of 0.75.

“The sCIOal Circle shows that Federal CIOs are people – just like the
rest of us,” said Steve O’Keeffe, founder of MeriTalk. “They’re adopting
social media at different rates. Social media’s a lot like a Ouija board
– until now, nobody really knew who was out there. The net takeaway –
you can’t afford to rely on social media today as the primary
communication channel to reach all Federal IT decision makers.”

The voice of tomorrow’s government today, MeriTalk is an online
community and go-to resource for government IT. Focusing on government’s
hot-button issues, MeriTalk hosts Data
Center Exchange, Cyber
Security Exchange, and Cloud
Computing Exchange – platforms dedicated to supporting
public-private dialogue and collaboration. MeriTalk connects with an
audience of 85,000 government community contacts. For more information,
visit www.meritalk.com
or follow us on Twitter, @meritalk.